5.2 Rising Action— “Defeating Apple’s Unparallel Arrogance”
5.2.5. The Consumers-Scene 2 Semantic Network
Like the consumer-social media network in Scene 1, given the linguistic diversity of consumers’ discourses on social media, for Scene 2 I also partition nodes according to the
modularity class—that is, nodes labels that belong to the same cluster have the same color.
This network features five major clusters. The biggest cluster (in violet) is centered on
Apple. Words that consist of this sub-network are boycott, abandon, prosecute, blow, despise,
disgusting, arrogant, annoying, shameless, et. The second largest cluster (in green) has CCTV as
the hub, which include words like useless and some swear words. The third cluster (in blue) has
China in the center and other words like despise, bully, ignore, apologize, grieve, and so on. It
also has a minor center of the U.S. surrounded by Chinese brands, such as Huawei, ZTC, and
words like sanction, Chinese government, double-standard, foreign, etc. The cluster in orange
about problem include words of supervision, air pollution, poisonous milk powder, gutter oil, etc.
The fifth cluster (in red) is made up by words of must, punish, unconscious, media, illegal, incite,
hostility, disobey, law, regulations, etc.
This network resembles the consumers’ network in scene 1 in the following aspects: first,
the biggest and core cluster in both networks is about Apple, where people argue against Apple
and many decide not to buy Apple products; second, in both stages, people did not buy CCTV’s
investigation and coverage on Apple in the context of other existing emergent quality issues on
food and environment. However, in scene 2, the cluster of CCTV consists of more emotional
swear words and few rational words, indicating people’s contempt about CCTV reporters’ failed
secret videotaping, an unprofessional and unethical news report. Another difference is in Scene
2, a new cluster emerges—the cluster of the U.S within the word community of China. It shows that people try to explain the cause of CCTV’s blast of Apple and view it as China’s revenge on
the sanctions the U.S. federal government imposed on some Chinese brands, such as Huawei and
ZTC.
To summarize, Apple’s first official statement published on its website (Apple.com.cn), a
letter to its consumers to defend its warranty policy and practice, intensified its crisis in the
following ways:
First, Apple and its stakeholders have fundamentally different interpretations about the “whole phone” repair policy, which essentially becomes the core issue in the crisis. Such a
difference in key term interpretations between the MNC and its stakeholders can be explained by
the extent to which its networks are structurally equivalent or have similar patterns of
communication. Semantic analysis of the term “whole-phone exchange” in Apple’s letter and the
responses from the state media, professionals, GNO, government agencies, and the consumers
reveals that the term have similar structures among stakeholders’ individual networks but distinct
structures between Apple and its stakeholders. As the stakeholders generally situate the “whole- phone exchange” closely related to words of illegal, tricky, deceitful, or against the Three
Guarantees, in Apple’s text, it directly connects the word means, which suggests that Apple
regards the whole-phone exchange policy as a unique means of repair that differs from the conventional practice of other brands. Through different definitions, Apple’s stakeholders rebut
Apple’s argument on the legitimacy of its “whole-phone exchange” with the facts of partial
exchange and limited warranty.
Second, the crisis gains weight as more stakeholders, especially the most powerful one—
process of crisis communication. Terms, contract, and format are important nodes with
high intensity in the network, indicating the topics of its text network. SAIC officially identifies Apple’s whole-phone exchange policy as having serious flaws (e.g. unfair standard contract in
iPhone Repair Terms and Conditions) against the governmental regulations that in fact caused
severe damage to consumers’ rights and interests. Another important hub that has high centrality
in the SAIC network is administrative acts, including words of strengthen, revise, supervise,
investigate, etc. Each of these words is surrounded by a few content words indicating the measures to actions. SAIC’s network is concrete with clear definition of the questionable terms,
detailed future actions, and specific purposes, all of which suggest its firm attitude of dealing with Apple’s case.
Third, in the social media platform Weibo, users continue holding various understandings of Apple’s “wrongdoings.” Like their opinions in Scene 1, people have the following divergent
arguments: Apple discriminates against Chinese consumers so boycott it; Apple is wrong but not
serious compared with what other domestic brands did; Apple was criticized as China’s political revenge on the U.S. for Huawei’s case. Compared with its network in Scene 1, consumers’
semantic network in Scene 2 does not have much variation in content: the central network is still
featuring criticism of Apple, with words closely connected in short paths from different
directions. The most obvious difference in two periods is people’s increased negative sentiments with CCTV’s serial investigations toward Apple stores after 3.15. Weibo users have significant
employment of swear words (with different representatives instead of the actual words, such as
characters with the same pronunciations or chopped characters of the original words) to describe CCTV’s intensity to attack Apple but ignoring other quality issues that happened simultaneously